Melbourne Institute

What is the conference about?

The health workforce forms the backbone of health care systems around the world. The decisions they make have major impacts on costs and health outcomes. The focus of the conference will be on micro-econometric studies of health workforce supply and demand. Among the topics we wish to explore are: pay and wage setting; competition in health labour markets; human capital formation; occupation and specialty choice; career transitions; gender differences; geographic distribution of health professionals; international migration; and the evaluation of policy interventions directed at health professionals' labour markets. The 2011 Handbook in Health Economics chapter by Sean Nicholson and Carol Propper on the Medical Workforce provides an excellent overview of the research into medical labour markets. Our view is that there is now the opportunity to complement this volume with a collection of papers that illustrate how advanced theoretical and econometric techniques in labour market analysis can be used to gain insights into the most important features of the labour markets for medical and other health professionals.

Conference format

The format of the conference will be different from that of the iHEA World Congress. The conference will be two days of plenary sessions with space for around 14 papers. There will be no concurrent/parrallel sessions.  Each paper will be allocated 50 minutes, comprising 30 minutes for presentation, 10 minutes for a discussant, and 10 minutes for general questions and discussion. A small scientific committee will select the papers for presentation.

Special issue of 'Health Economics'

There will be a special issue of Health Economics that will include papers submitted from those presented at the conference. It is therefore preferable if the paper you submit has not been accepted by a journal.

Submission of papers and registration

The deadline for submissions was 29 February 2013 and is now closed.

Please contact Penny Hope, p.hope@unimelb.edu.au for further details or with any queries regarding the submission process.

World Bank Sponsorship

The World Bank has agreed to finance the travel (economy) and registration costs of three delegates from the developing countries who have papers accepted or are selected to discuss papers.

Scientific Committee

Sean Nicholson, Cornell University
Marteen Lindeboom, VU University Amsterdam
Martin Chalkley, University of York
Jan Erik Askildsen, University of Bergen
Stephen Morris, University College London
Joanne Spetz, University California San Francisco

Organisers

Professor Tony Scott, Melbourne Institute

Professor Bob Elliott, The University of Aberdeen